It is known that heating fuel consumed by an internal combustion engine during a cold start, particularly fuel comprising alcohol, reduced hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide (CO) emissions. The Society of Automotive Engineers publications entitled Heated Injectors for Ethanol Cold Starts (SAE 2009-01-0615) by Daniel Kabasin et al. and Emission Reduction with Heated Injectors (SAE 2010-01-1265) by Daniel Kabasin et al. document the benefits of using heated fuel injectors to reduce engine emissions, the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein. The temperature control of such heated injectors typically uses an open loop approach that regulates power to a heater element based on extensive empirical testing of output fuel temperatures for various fuel flow rates, ambient temperatures, coolant temperatures, elapsed time from initiation of crank, and estimated fuel flow rates. The open-loop temperature control is supposed to keep the heater element temperature below a maximum failure temperature of the heater element, below a melting temperature of a protective plastic covering the heater element, and below the boiling temperature of the fuel resident in the injector. This open-loop control also considers manufacturing variation of heater resistances and so requires a safety margin in the power applied to the heaters in order to avoid vapor lock or damage due to excessive heating. Consequently, the open-loop approach may result in less than optimal heating of the fuel and/or failed cold starts.